That is not only bad advice; it has become impossible. The Middle East is in an internal crisis. They are trying to recapture a time when they were the scientific, commercial, and philosophical center of the world.

That era came and went in 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella married, and Columbus set sail for the New World.

It can never be recaptured. It is like a mid life crisis. How they weather this storm will determine their future. We can’t stay out of it. We must not stay out of it.

As I said, anyone can dream up a policy — recognize this country, don’t recognize that country, but geopolitics is a wee bit more complicated than that. I’m sure even bill l realizes that, even if you don’t.

Bill l: If you want to get into, “He started it, no, he started it”, then fine. End your comments here. Fine by me. Please recall that I attempted to end it at May 29, 2007 7:18:45 PM

I don’t know what school Frank is associated with, but I’m sure it’s a worse place for having him there.
Thanks, jimmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Every once in a while it slips my mind what mean spirited trash you are, and I need reminding. I never have to wait too long to be reminded how disgusting liberals can be, despite their incessant mewling about tolerance and compassion

So what’s your plan, sparky?
Seems like Bill has some pretty valid points about our current situation, but I don’t hear any counter offers. Love those “air-quotes”.

Notice he never takes responsibility for starting the snark-fest with his response to my response to Mike’s post? “What a relief!” right Frank?

Now he’s in full-on projection mode with “Anyone can dream up a “future” for the “middle east”. That’s how liberals have ruined our foreign policy for decades all around the world.” Given our current administration, I’ll let the irony of that statement speak for itself.

Besides, there’s no point in spinning my wheels on this for another 30 posts.

The same patience we exercise with you, Frank, while you hijack virtually every thread you comment on.

I wasn’t asking for a dissertation on the middle east’s foreign policy. And in terms of pure comprehension, one can’t get from a paragraph what wasn’t there.

Telling me what was on your mind afterward is no reflection on my reading ability.

Enough about me. Anyone can dream up a “future” for the “middle east”. That’s how liberals have ruined our foreign policy for decades all around the world.

Right now, the issue is that there is a dangerous group of people out there, trained, armed, financially supported and prepared to die.

They are in Iraq. Shall we go, and leave them there, or not?

If we stay, what shall we do that we are not doing? What should we stop doing that we are doing?

I don’t know why we don’t change radically our dealings with Saudi Arabia, but unlike you,I don’t favor throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I don’t know what we’re getting,but it’s more than oil.

You have no idea what the extent of our international operations are, because they are mostly covert. So you have no idea what “ramping them up” even means. And it doesn’t mean “you going all Mission: Impossible” on anyone. (There’s a serious point you found necessary to raise, because “cons can’t debate honestly”. But we can avoid snarkiness — it’s not an addiction for us.)

“Practice what we preach”, I’m sorry to say, is incredibly naïve. It has never worked, nor will it ever.

I can assure you that if you wish to continue the glib tone, snarkiness, and personal attacks, you will merely get back what you have given.

I have tried very hard to be patient.

The “War on Terror” is political marketing and has been crafted for GOP theatrics like “orange alerts” and the “Fort Dix Six.” It exists to squelch debate by terrifying the public into surrendering to the GOP authoritarian agenda, and it worked for 6 years, but is now, thankfully, fading.

Virtually none of the procedures put into place by Bush and the DOHS have had any impact whatsoever on our safety. Our harbors are unprotected, thanks to lobbying from companies like Walmart that don’t want to cover the extra fees. Our airports routinely fail to pass security tests. Checking our shoes and restricting the amount of toothpaste we can carry has had no effect other than to increase waits and piss off travelers.

We are accomplishing nothing in Iraq other than draining our military’s ability to respond to genuine threats at home and abroad while simultaneously providing a terrific boost to organizations like al Qaida via increased recruitment and urban guerrilla training. We should pull out. Period. We can debate what to do with Iraq after that once it becomes a bit clearer where things are actually headed versus where we think they’ll go but can’t be sure because our mere presence is mucking things up.

Stop all international surveillance and espionage. Espionage? Do you mean covert ops, or are you going all Mission: Impossible on me? At what point did I suggest doing nothing? This is what I mean when I say cons can’t debate honestly. I can’t simply be opposed to the current administration and their methodology. I must be in favor of rolling over with my belly exposed, ripe for another “9/11!” (cue dramatic crescendo)

What we need to do (which I have stated in other threads, but here we go again):

1 – Stop interfering in Middle Eastern affairs as much as possible. No more propping up autocratic dictatorships like the Sauds, no more interfering in elections ala Iran (or more recently, Iraq, so much for the purple finger of liberty), funding extremists (Sunnis, no less, how’s that helping prevent another 9/11?), no more blocking progress toward peace between Israel and the Palestineans (and that means no more unconditional support for the hard right Likud, either), and so on. That includes dumping any more plans for permanent bases and scraping many that already exist. The U.S. has the most blatant “empire by proxy” network of military bases in the world, but nowhere does it do more harm than in the Mid East.

2 – Ramp up domestic and international use of police, F.B.I. and intelligence organizations. All the pieces were in place to prevent 9/11. We either ignored the warnings, allowed inter-departmental competition or antiquated regulations stop data sharing and analysis, or went fishing. Imagine if we bothered to increase airport security and provide a common database of suspected individuals to airlines when we were first warned in the Spring before 9/11, much less after the infamous PDB about bin Laden.

3 – Practice what we preach. By holding firm to our (supposed) principles of justice and equality for all, we undermine many of the talking points used by radicals to draw support against us. If we go the next step and, say, use the billions we waste on Iraq to enrich an elite few at the expense of the majority to instead, as the saying goes, raise all boats, we will “drain the swamp” and rob al Qaida, or another group of fanatics, of there life support. We will still suffer the occasional Oklahoma City, but the odds of anything on the level of a coordinated, multiple airplane attack on the U.S. will drop to virtually zero.

Your superficial understanding of my posts makes me wonder just how good your school could possibly be.

We do, however, agree on one point. The Simpsons hasn’t been great for nearly a decade. Of course, the Troy McClure bit I was referring to pre-dates that and that particular episode is still incredibly funny.

To what degree shall we disengage from our attempt to prevent another 9/11?

And making fun of my school is really, really juvenile and stupid. Especially referring to a character from a cartoon show that outlived its novelty about 10 years ago.

This is my favorite line from Mike’s post, by the way. Not because it isn’t true, the Japanese were ruthless and brutal, but because it so transparently tries to bridge the gap between WWII and the “War on Terror.” See, the Japanese used terror and we are fighting terrorists…sort of. It is just much simpler to enlarge the scope of the definition of terrorist to encompass anyone anywhere that opposes us. Except when we support you, then you’re a “freedom fighter,” like in Nicaragua or Afghanistan back in the 80′s with that swell bin Laden.

Putting aside the framing that we are at war in Iraq when in fact we are in the midst of an occupation, the whole proposition falls apart when you consider that Bush elected to go to war against a non-aggressor and FDR went to war in response to the actions of two potent enemies who were already engaged against our allies.

The “stuff about nuclear restraint” was in response to Mike’s suggestion that had Bush been free to use nukes in Iraq, we’d be done with the place by now. So it’s irrelevant in the sense that, again, you missed the point. Funnier still, you mention seeking the total destruction of Japan. When did that happen and how does that relate to my point about the need for restraint in the 21st century?

How would we fight a conventional war at this point of the occupation? We did the conventional thing when we rolled over Iraq’s forces in the fifteen minutes or so it took for the initial invasion.

Do I need to comment on the irony of insisting that I don’t read your posts when my query, “what was my point,” was made in response to one of your…wait for it…posts.
A post, I might add, that responded to mine by sighting casualty statistics for every country for all of WWII, effectively proving, well, nothing.

So, in effect, my question about whether you got my point was rhetorical, but you’ve established nicely that you not only missed my point, but most probably Mike’s as well.

A two-fer.

You made two points:

First: God, cons are dishonest.

25,000 to 35,000 were killed at Dresden, not 250,000-500,000.

Approximately 140,000-150,000 were killed in the initial blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not 210,000. It is possible that a similar number died later from radiation exposure or other related diseases and injuries.

It was to that point that I referred.

All the other stuff about nuclear restraint is not only irrelevant to the discussion about Iraq, it is also irrelevant to Mike’s point about seeking the total destruction of Japan.

I can’t and won’t speak for Mike, but we are not even fighting a “full – blown” conventional war against Iraq. This accounts for many of our difficulties — not Presidential incompetence, or the inability of the Iraqis to “play nice”.

Do I pass? (not that I care)

It’s not as if you read any of my posts.

1. Was an authoritaria-in a abad way.
2. Lied to the public, often.
3. Began many ineffective program
4. delayed the economic recovery.
5. Imprisoned Japanese needlessly.

Approximately 140,000-150,000 were killed in the initial blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not 210,000.

What a relief!

For a moment, I thought it was a lot of people.

25,000 to 35,000 were killed at Dresden, not 250,000-500,000.

Approximately 140,000-150,000 were killed in the initial blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not 210,000. It is possible that a similar number died later from radiation exposure or other related diseases and injuries.

Next, naturally, when faced with a discussion about FDR, there has to be some effort to drag nukes into the story, so the con fable gets expanded to include Truman. Likewise, the firebombing of Tokyo didn’t happen on FDR’s watch either. This isn’t to say that he wouldn’t have ordered those strikes. He certainly presided over the Dresden attacks, but this thread is about his actual legacy, not Truman’s or some twisted fantasy where G.W. is a more compassionate leader than FDR.

Though I strongly disapprove of the Japanese internment camps, the Dresden firebombing, and a few other aspects of FDR’s presidency, on balance, he accomplished many amazing things. However, the con effort to liken Iraq to WWII in so many of these threads depends on ignoring one salient point on which all others depend. We were attacked and then we struck back in WWII. In Iraq, we invaded, in violation of international law. At this point, any comparison between FDR and Bush should grind to a complete halt.

Restraint over the use of nuclear weapons is as much a matter of pragmatism as anything else. Were we to use nukes indiscriminately to solve all our conflicts, we would run the risk of accelerating nuclear proliferation, not to mention possibly triggering a much larger exchange with a more potent adversary. There is also the increased likelyhood that any blowback in the form of terrorism would be that much worse than anything we’ve experienced to date.

World War II was the last war fought by the US where we were committed to total victory over the enemy, regardless of cost.

Our enemies were ruthless, deliberately bombing civilian populations and slaughtering civilians as methods of terror designed to break the will of those they conquered and those they wanted to conquer. The Japanese were the worst offenders.

So we fought back in the same way. We knew the Japanese would fight to the death, so we slaughtered them down to the last man using weapons like flamethrowers to burn them alive.

We dropped incindiary bombs on Tokyo and Dresden. 250,000 to 500,000 civilians were killed in one night in Dresden. Over 100,000 civilians were killed in one night in Tokyo.

Then we dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, which killed an estimated 210,000 civilians outright and left half a million more horribly burned or condemned to death from radiation poisoning or cancer.

Had America used that kind of destructive firepower in Iraq or anywhere else, I have no doubt that “victory” would have been swift and with a minimal loss of American life.

But the cost of WWII was so high that the US made a conscious decision never to fight a war in the same way again. MacArthur was relieved from his command in Korea for suggesting an invasion of China that would have resulted in fighting on a similar scale.

And ever since, we have been extremely restrained in our combat efforts, often putting soldiers and Marines in the line of fire in order to diminish possible civilian casualties.

Why don’t you tell me whether or not Bush would have been a “hero” if he would have ordered nuke strikes against Bin Laden or Saddam? Or if he ordered enemy fighters or insurgents to be slaughtered to the last man? Because that is the comparison that you are really trying to make when you envoke WWII and FDR/Truman.